That’s the title of Citizens’ Climate Lobby’s proposed European Citizens’ Initiative to the European Commission (pictured) that we’ve just learnt has been accepted. Their press release states:
Today the European Commission decided to register 4 new European Citizens’ Initiatives: ‘The fast, fair and effective solution to climate change’, ‘Ending the aviation fuel tax exemption in Europe’, ‘Cohesion policy for the equality of the regions and sustainability of the regional cultures’ and ‘PRO-NUTRISCORE’. …
At this stage in the process, the Commission has not analysed the substance of the initiatives, but only their legal admissibility. Should any of the 4 registered initiatives receive 1 million statements of support within 1 year from at least 7 different Member States, the Commission will analyse it and react within 3 months. The Commission can decide either to follow the request or not, and in both instances would be required to explain its reasoning.
If the UK were to leave the European Union within the next year then we would not be one of the member states from whom these statements of support would be considered, but the initiative itself would remain in contention any signatures received before we Brexit would still count.
Our initiative, drafted in conjunction with the other CCL groups in Europe, reads:
The fast, fair and effective solution to climate change
The objective of this European Citizens’ Initiative is to introduce ‘a steadily increasing price on fossil fuels‘, which would reduce pollution and would be ‘returned fairly every month to citizens as a dividend’. The organisers state that ‘Scientists and economists agree: Putting an increasing price on pollution and giving the returns to households – works‘.
Under the EU Treaties, the European Commission can take legal action with an aim of preserving, protecting and improving the quality of the environment as well as in the area of harmonisation of indirect taxation and commercial policy. The Commission therefore considers the initiative legally admissible and decided to register it. The registration of this initiative will take place on 6 May 2019, starting a one-year process of collection of signatures of support by its organisers.
You can support our initiative by signing at CitizensClimateInitiative.eu